Wishing upon stars
by TheWhiteCrayon
Summary: "Did you ever even love me at all?" he asks. "I tried to," she says. (But that's not enough, is it?) /oneshot, samcentric.


**I don't really know what to say about this story. Just, read it, and I hope you like it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly or its characters.**

 **/**

She's standing at the rooftop of her building, looking at the only star in the sky.

"I wish," she whispers "I wasn't so broken."

The star (turning out to be a helicopter) flies away, leaving her and her wish behind in the dark.

She laughs until her stomach hurts and the tears don't sting her eyes anymore.

.

"Did you ever even love me at all?" he asks. " _Really_ love me?"

"I tried to," she says. (But that's not enough, is it?)

.

The little girl holds on tight to her sobbing mother and burries her face in her shoulder.

She wishes she felt sad or scared or angry or worried, but she doesn't.

She doesn't feel anything.

.

She leaves without a goodbye, just like her father did. (guess after all these years of saying she's _justlikehim_ , her mother turns out to be right, after all)

She's leaving because he deserves better than her, and maybe he'll see that as the _reason_ she's leaving, or maybe he'll see that _because_ she is leaving.

But either way, it'll be the truth, and she's not sure why that knowledge is making her blood run cold(er).

.

She kisses him because she feels like it. (and doesn't she always do _e_ x _a_ c _t_ l _y_ what she _feels like_ )

(He tastes like sweet coffee with cream and sugar and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies -and for a second she thinks she's in heaven.)

(But then the kiss ends and she crashes back down to earth with a sickening blow, and as she looks into his eyes, she immediately regrets the whole thing.)

His warm brown eyes stare into her icy blue ones, and she swears she can see all hope and all love and all dreams that the world posesses all brought together inside those eyes.

"Sorry," she mumbles.

(But it's too late because he's already falling for her, and her selfish heart has already decided to let him.)

(and no matter what she does now, that unchangeble fact has already been engraved in the future)

.

For a while, all she feels around him are butterflies. And everything he does is _sweet_ and _loveable_ and utterly _m_ e _s_ m _e_ r _i_ z _i_ n _g_ to her.

For a while, he smells like cinnamon and strawberries and freshly mown grass, and the mere _thought_ of him makes her mind go foggy.

For a while, his smile can turn grey and rainy seattle into an explosion of color and happiness and all things _good_.

(for a while)

.

 _Y_ O _U_ C _A_ N _' T_ F _I_ X _W_ H _A_ T _I_ S _N_ ' T _B_ R _O_ K _E_ N _A_ N _D_ H _O_ W _C_ A _N_ I _T_ B _E_ B R _O_ K _E_ N _I_ F _I_ T ' _S_ A _L_ W _A_ Y S _B_ E _E_ N _T_ H _I_ S _W_ A _Y_?

.

She wakes up next to him one day, and realises that its over.

(nothing's particularly _different_ from other mornings, but she just kind of _k_ n _o_ w _s,_ somehow)

She watches him, fast asleep, and his closed eyes are thick and his hair is ruffled and his mouth is just a little bit open and she doesn't _feel_ the butterflies anymore.

(she's gone before he wakes up.)

.

It's crazy how fucking fast things (she) can change. From one moment on to the next, she doesn't feel _flattered_ anymore when he calls her princess. She doesn't feel _loved_ anymore when he wraps his arms around her. She doesn't feel _happy_ anymore when he walks into the room.

(instead, she feels _suffocated_ and _guilty_ and _disgusted_ )

.

There's only one thing in life that's certain ( _consistant_ ). And that's that all things (everything) have a beginning and an end.

(she might not really remember her own beginning but

she sure as hell is going to

 _end_

 _with a_ bang)

(FIREWORKS)

.

"I'm scared Carly," she whispers.

"I know," she says. "But you can't keep running from everything that scares you, Sam."

Its quiet for a really long time before she speaks again.

"I can't stay here anymore, either," she says.

.

"Do you want to go out tonight?" Freddie asks. "We haven't been on a real date in like, forever."

She doesn't want to look at him, so instead she focuses intensely on a loose thread, hanging from the sleeve of her shirt, pulling it until it comes off.

"I don't really feel like going anywhere tonight," she says.

(she doesn't look at him, so she can't see the look on his face when she turns him down _a_ g _a_ i _n_ )

"That's alright," he says. "We can just stay in. You want to watch a movie or something? We can order from that pizza place you like."

She wraps the thread around her finger, around and around, tighter and tighter until her fingertop turns red, and then purple.

She feels his hand being placed on her back, his fingers rubbing the skin underneith her shirt. (and there's a headache coming up fast and _oh god_ are the walls closing in on them?)

She stands up from the couch and walks over to the chair she dropped her bag on.

"Actually, I think I'm just gonna go home," she says (still refusing to _l_ o _o_ k _a_ t _h_ i _m_ ) "See you tomorrow?"

Freddie gets up too. He walks over to her and lays his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look right into his eyes. "Sam, I thought we had all night together," he says.

"I'm sorry, Freddie, I just have a headache," she says. (and its the freaking truth, too, because there's a big hammer being smashed into her skull repeatedly and the room is spinning around them faster and faster)

"Well are you gonna be okay then? Do you want me to walk you home?" Freddie asks like the sweet and caring and _loving_ boyfriend that he is ( _god, it just makes her want to barf_ ).

"I'm fine," she says, managing a quick smile. "I think I'd rather walk home alone, if that's okay."

He pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "Yeah, of course," he says. "If that's what you want." (but his eyes still say; _pleasedon'tleavemeplease_ )

"I'll see you later," she whispers, because suddenly, she's quite sure she's not gonna be seeing him tomorrow.

"See you soon," he whispers before gently kissing her lips. (only he doesn't taste like sweet coffee and chocolate chip cookies anymore. He tastes like cheap, warm beer and dusty, forgotten breathminths, and she knows -in that moment she _knows_ she's ruined him.)

She walks out the door without looking back.

.

She takes the first flight leaving for Las Vegas (because -hey- she's never been there before. And she just needs to breathe some air that doesn't feel like _acid_ filling her lungs.)

The minute she sets foot on land she goes to a bar. (and isn't that kind of what's _expected_ from her?)

She drinks five shots of vodka before they finally hit her all at once.

(the next memory she has is throwing them all up again in a bathroom she's never seen before and there's a guy she's never met before standing behind her holding her hair out of her face)

 _What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas._ Right?

(Right?)

.

The night after that she finds herself in another bar with another vodka (because Sam Puckett never learns from her _m_ i _s_ t _a_ k _e_ s -that's just not who she is).

"The next one's on me," she hears someone tell the bartender. She looks up into the face of a smiling guy in his mid-twenties, with the prettiest green eyes she's ever seen.

"Thanks," she says, before emptying her current glass.

They drink two more shots before he kisses her. _(or does she kiss him?)_

"Do you wanna come up to my room?" he asks.

"I've got a boyfriend," she says. (she doesn't know if she's telling him, or reminding herself)

The guy (she doesn't want to know his name, she told him) shrugs his shoulders. "I don't see him," he says.

She kisses him again before following him into the elevator. (limbs tangle and breaths collide and _fuck,_ its the first time in _weeks_ that she's felt _a_ l _i_ v _e_ )

.

She stays there for exactly eleven days (drinking booze & screwing boys) before she takes a flight back home.

She goes to Carly's flat straight from the airport. "Hey, Carls, I'm home," she says before closing the door behind her.

"Where the hell have you been?" Carly asks, surprisingly calm.

"Vegas," she grins.

"Do you have any idea what you did to Freddie?" Carly asks. "To me? We were worried sick!"

"I'm sorry." she says. "I'm sorry, okay? I just, needed to get away for a little while."

"O, well, then there's nothing you can do, right?" Carly says, "Nothing more important than what Sam Puckett needs, right?"

(and then, there's the deafening sound of silence, hardly even broken by a slamming door)

(and then, she's gone again.)

.

He finds her at the train station later that night. Carly must have told him she stopped by. (and maybe he does know her, after all.)

First, she was going to go away again. (But then she realised she was broke, so)

Then, she was gonna jump. _(which would ensure going out with a_ literal _BANG)_ (but then she realised she didn't actually wanted to _die,_ so)

(so,) now, she's just sitting here, watching the trains ride by.

He shows up a little while after midnight, and sits down next to her on the cold waiting-bench.

"Please come home, Sam," he says. "Please."

(she only goes with him because she's got nowhere else to go.)

.

She's not happy.

She's not _un_ happy, either.

(It's not like before she left anymore, it's not like _suffocating in his arms_ anymore)

She's just not (he just can't make her) _h_ a _p_ p _y_.

(And she tries and _tries_ to live like that, but she can't.)

 _(she always was selfish)_

.

Her friendship with Carly has always been the only _real_ thing in her life.

The only thing _(person)_ she never grew tired of after a while.

(She thinks she loses her after the third time she breaks Freddie Benson's heart.)

.

She meets him again, years later. (Long after her skin has started to wrinkle, and her teeth and fingertips have grown yellow, and the puncture marks on her arms stopped fading.)

He's on a business trip in New York, and she just happened to find a lost train ticket Boston-New York, three days ago.

He buys her coffee in a restaurant that's way too chique for her to fit in and pays for it with a creditcard that (judging by the look of his designer clothes) doesn't ever really run out.

He asks her how she's been and all she can say is "I'm never bored."

"Then you got your wish," he says.

.

It's not until the fifth time she leaves that its for good. She's really (completely) burned down her bridges this time, and nobody _wants_ her to come back anymore.

(she doesn't say goodbye to anyone, except for the Seattle rain)

.

She's at the top of her old building again (almost fifteen years after she left Seattle _forever_ ).

There's still not one star visible in the sky. (and she thinks maybe there's an angel up there, who thinks she's just not _worthy_ of wishing upon stars)

"I wish," she whispers anyway.

"I wasn't so broken."

 **/**

 **If you can spare the time, please leave me a review :)**


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